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Policy School masters as prep for PhD Econ

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There is a general agreement that top European masters like LSE EME are awesome prep for a top US PhD. But how do the first year of policy schools fare compared to them? Well ideally one could argue that policy school is not to be considered as a stepping stone for econ PhD but since so many have done it before, it begs the question. I especially would like to know how it is for the Econ and Public Policy track for Princeton WWS MPA. Their site says Econ and Pub Pol track students take econ courses beyond the core curriculum. Are they allowed to enroll for graduate econ courses provided they already have a solid econ and math background.

Re: Policy School masters as prep for PhD Econ

Hi I'm a first year at a T30, almost done with the first year. Here's my two cents:
Its not a good preparation. Perhaps the princeton name might carry some weight but you're still strictly better off getting a masters in econ from places like LSE/Duke/Wisconsin etc. Check with the MPA director at princeton what books are followed for the econ courses. Ideally it should be something at the level of MWG for micro, hayashi for metrics (macro varies you have to worry about that later). I'm 95 percent positive that the courses are not taught at that level and obviously adcoms will know that which will hurt your admission chances, not to mention your actual performance should you go for phd.

Re: Policy School masters as prep for PhD Econ

Hi and thank you @econphd1992. I have mailed the MPA program regarding this but yet to receive any reply. In fact from what I gathered they have cancelled 511d which was apparently their version of advanced micro since 2014. But it used papa varian mostly. Now they run a pretty dumbed down 511c with pindyck I think. As for their metrics called 508c they seem to use only wooldridge. But they say that their econ and public policy track requires econ courses beyond the core curriculum. I wanted to know what that could actually mean. Do they just take advanced courses within WWS or can they venture out into the Econ Department.

Re: Policy School masters as prep for PhD Econ

Of all the thousands of students that have thought about this in this forum, I don't think I've ever heard a single candidate going into a professional master's program and take PhD econ courses and end up getting into a PhD econ program. I can't say that's impossible, I've just never seen it happen.